Ghana is among eight African countries with over 90% pass rate for crypto transactions in the world, according to the recently released Sumsub State of the Crypto Industry 2025 Report.
Per the report, Ghana and Namibia showed the highest user pass rate across Africa – 93%. And the proportion of traffic Ghana has is around 3% of all African traffic.
The six other countries which showed 90% and above are Kenya, Algeria, Morocco, Uganda, South Africa and Tunisia, while Nigeria and Tanzania dipped lower.
A pass rate in this context is the percentage or number of users that passed verification on a crypto trading platform.
Meanwhile, Nigeria recorded the lowest pass rate of 75% in Africa, and the highest rate of fraud across the entire global crypto sector at 8.3%. Fraud rate in Ghana stood at 3.5%.
In terms of speed of verification, again Ghana, South Africa, Algeria and Morocco were among the top ten with the fastest verification time 20 seconds or less, while Kenya trailed with times of 29 seconds, but showed increased verification speed for document-free verification at 4-seconds only, surpassed only by Nigeria with 3-seconds.
Global Trends
The reported noted that generally, 2024 was ‘a year of onboarding’ for crypto exchanges, with crypto platforms experiencing a 20% rise in traffic during major market events such as the re-election of President Donald Trump and Bitcoin rallies in November 2024.
It also noted that fraud in the crypto industry soared by 48%, with document forgery constituting 31% of all detected fraud cases.
“Globally 60% of crypto companies foresee stricter regulations, while only 29% fully comply with the Travel Rule,” the report said.
Details
As the industry navigates a pivotal period of growth and regulation, the report identifies three critical challenges that crypto providers faced in 2024 and should address in 2025 in order to succeed – security threats, technology capabilities, and regulation.
Security challenge: Fraud rising in the crypto sector
Sumsub’s data reveals that the 48% growth in fraud rate in the crypto industry makes up 2.2% of all verification attempts across global crypto platforms. This surge highlights the need for companies to adopt AI-powered detection, biometrics, and continuous monitoring to enhance security.
Nigeria recorded the highest rate of fraud across the crypto sector, with 8.3% of verification attempts flagged as fraudulent. Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania all have fraud rates of 4.8%, with Cameroon (4.5%), Ethiopia (3.7%), Ghana (3.5%), Algeria (2.6%), Benin (2.6%) and Morocco (2.1%) recording significant rates.
The most popular fraud types are document forgery (affecting 31% of surveyed companies), phishing (20%) and money mulling (15%), followed by account takeover (14%) and forced verification (12%).
Tech challenge: traffic spikes to crypto platforms
Innovations like biometric checks, AI-backed automation and document-free verification have boosted crypto platform users’ onboarding success rates to 93.39%and reduced verification time by 46%, overall improving customer onboarding while reducing drop-off cases.
The report highlights notable innovations like document-free verification, which has enhanced verification times in every country where it was implemented, with an average improvement of 3.6%.
In Africa, non-document verification has significantly improved onboarding speed. Nigeria leads the way with the fastest non-doc verification time at just 3 seconds, despite having the slowest document-based verification at 27 seconds.
Similarly, Kenya processes non-doc verifications in 4 seconds but lags with document-based verification at 29 seconds.
South Africa, with an overall verification time of 20 seconds, shows room for improvement in document-free verification, which currently takes 11 seconds – significantly slower than its regional counterparts, yet much faster than document-based onboarding.
Document-free identity verification has already gained adoption by 19% of surveyed companies worldwide, with Africa leading the way at 27%, showcasing the region’s openness to innovative solutions.
The key user onboarding issues that crypto providers aim to mitigate include: slow verification times, which impact 36% of surveyed companies, as well as false positives/negatives (48%). Furthermore, over half (55%) of companies reported dissatisfaction with overall user experience.
Regulatory challenge: understanding Travel Rule compliance requirements
According to Sumsub’s Crypto Industry Research Survey 2024, three-in-five (60%) companies foresee stricter regulations, emphasizing the need for proactive compliance upgrades. A key focus is the Travel Rule (FATF Recommendation 16), which urges VASPs to exchange sender-recipient information during crypto transfers. However, only 29% of companies fully comply, with unclear guidance cited as a key barrier. The gap between legal requirements rendering global crypto transactions transparent and their disproportionate adoption leaves many firms at risk of sanctions and fines.
In South Africa we can expect to see some tightening of crypto regulations as the country looks to table its Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2024. Also, the country recently confirmed the enactment of the Travel Rule for crypto asset service providers (CASPs) starting from April 2025.
The study also highlights Sumsub’s global analysis of the leading crypto-friendly hubs in 2024 with well-defined regulations, strong infrastructure, and innovation-driven environments.
“The regulatory landscape is evolving rapidly, and crypto businesses cannot afford to fall behind. Europe once appeared to be leading the world with its comprehensive MiCA regulation. However, with the Trump administration promoting crypto and advocating for a digital asset framework, the playing field is shifting. MiCA’s stringent requirements may be challenging for companies to meet, opening the door for the U.S. to reassert itself as the hub of crypto innovation. Once deemed the ‘Wild West,’ crypto is now at an inflection point,” comments Ilya Brovin, Chief Growth Officer at Sumsub.
“Africa’s growing adoption of crypto provides its own challenges, but we foresee increasing demand and growing user expectations across the continent“, adds Hannes Bezuidenhout, VP of Business Development – Africa at Sumsub. “So it’s crucial for VASPs operating in the region to implement secure verification systems and stay vigilant to fraud, while keeping an eye on evolving and new regulations concerning the crypto sector to avoid fines”.
Sumsub is a global full-cycle verification platform. It is the number one verification provider for the crypto industry working with 6 out of 10 top global crypto exchanges.